Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your List | Part 1 of 2
How many times have you heard that “the money is in the list”? This often-quoted statement is actually quite misleading. It should read that the money is in a well-managed and highly responsive list.
In this two-part blog post, we’ll look at the whole process - from gathering names to converting those names into valuable clients.
Email marketing can be summed up in one small anecdote: Two rustlers stood looking at a field of cows, and the young rustler says: “Let’s run into the field and grab a cow.” To which the old rustler replies: “No let’s walk in slowly and grab them all.”
Let’s begin…
#1 - Offer Incentives
The first step in building your list is to get members to sign up. You can achieve this in many ways. The usual method is to place a signup box on a web page and ask people to sign up to your newsletter. However, there are more effective methods. You can offer incentives such as free ebooks, or video guides, or even a free 7-day course.
The better your offer, the more signups you will achieve. Many people would happily sign up for a regular newsletter. However, by adding incentives, you increase your sign up rate and potentially increase your earnings from your list.
#2 - Getting Customers through Forums
Now that you have decided how you will entice your members to sign up, it’s time to get them to read your offer.
If we wanted to generate an email list that would focus on photography, then we could go to a photography forum and start to post messages. By answering questions and being helpful in the forum, we would soon be recognized as an authority on the subject.
We could then add details of our newsletter to our forum signature. While this method is quite effective, we could add one more step that would help to really increase our signups.
#3 - Get Testimonials
Just as you can make incentives available to people who sign up to your list, you can offer these incentives directly to members of the forum. I have also seen this method work really well, with a slight added twist.
Instead of offering a free guide to any particular member of the forum, one member created an ebook and posted that he was shortly going to sell this through ClickBank. He said he would be happy to give free copies of the guide to forum members in return for testimonials.
Within a few hours he had 500 new members in his list, all of which were interested in the particular subject.
He may have lost out on a few sales of his book. But he gained in the long run from additional sales, and even from affiliate sales, since a number of members promoted the book he released. Many people would balk at giving away a book they intended to sell.
But selling the book was never the main focus of this promotion; getting a list was.
#4 - Don’t Sell…Yet
Once we have a list, we need to give the members the value they joined for, and if possible surpass their expectations. The members most likely joined to get help and advice, but they are expecting you to sell to them. After all, that’s what everyone does, isn’t it? You are going to surprise them by giving them what they wanted and not selling to them…yet!
#5 - Establish a Relationship First
Under no circumstances should you attempt to sell anything to your list before you have established a good relationship with them. This can take many weeks or months. In fact, I’ve heard it mentioned that you shouldn’t attempt to sell to list in the first year.
Personally I think that is a bit long. But it indicates that a list needs to be nurtured before you sell to it. I never attempt to sell anything to a list until they have had at least 10-15 informative emails from me.
#6 - Ease Into Selling
People join your lists for information. If you wish to keep your members subscribed, make sure that you attempt to sell to them only on an infrequent basis. You’ll notice that many list owners will send two or three offers a week. The conversion rate on these lists is usually very poor, and they rely on a constant influx of new members to replace members who unsubscribe.
I have one list of fewer than 60 people, and if I send them an offer, my conversion rate is usually in excess of 20-25%. This list has only had one offer sent to it in the last six months.
Yet this one small list is responsible for more than $500 of recurring income every month. I have revealed these facts to demonstrate two things. First, you don’t need a large list. And second, a well-managed list can be very profitable.
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